14 DAY TRIAL // Is there somebody watching us? Are "they" observing without letting us observing "them"? Are "they" already here camouflaged in who knows what? The SETI is looking for any sign of intelligent aliens since 1986 and insofar has only found silence. But, as it was said many times before, the absence of the proof does not prove the absence.
Our solar system has existed for around 4.6 billion years and will last for another 5 billion years or so, while the universe itself has existed for at least 11 billion years - probably more. The point is: our Sun does not belong to the first generation of stars. It belongs to the 5th or 6th generation.
The first generation of stars probably didn't have planets at all because at that time only hydrogen and helium (maybe also lithium) existed. Some of these first generation stars were large enough to eventually explode as supernovas, a process that created all the other elements. But a star that ends up as a supernova has a much shorter life-span than a Sun-like star - the greater mass causes its "fuel" to burn much faster. Such stars only live for around 1 billion years.
From the remnants of such supernovas the second generation stars formed. The formation of a solar system takes around several million years. This second generation of stars was similar in all its aspects to the present day stars. The only difference was on large scales - the galaxies haven't developed yet their shapes. The next generations of stars were also similar to present day stars.
In other words, the possibility of a proper solar system where life could appear existed for billions of years before the actual appearance of our own solar system. Given the immensity of our Galaxy, it's hard to imagine that no solar system similar to our own have appeared before our own. Isaac Asimov described this immensity in the following way: for each star that can be seen with the naked eye on a clear night sky there are around a billion other unseen stars - and this is only in our Galaxy.
The Sun-like stars from the second generation were about to become nasty and to make their Earth-like planets inhabitable only around the time when our Sun began to form. (A Sun-like star eventually swells into a red giant engulfing the closest planets and eventually explodes leaving behind a white dwarf - a process that can take place over a period of around 2 billion years.) In other words, compared to us, life on other Earth-like planets has had a head-start of billions of years.
And what would this mean in terms of technology? Given the huge pace at which technology develops, even a head-start of one million years seems incomprehensible. Who could tell for instance what space technologies we will have one thousand years from now? We can only say they will be beyond our imagination. But what about millions of years from now?
The point is that it seems highly unlikely that the much more evolved and technologically developed aliens could not reach Earth or simply haven't discovered us. If we don't observe them here it is because either: 1. They haven't appeared in the first place (the probability of technology is much smaller than we may think); 2. They have self-destructed or have been destroyed by natural factors beyond their control; 3. They don't want us to observe them.
The point 1 may seem to have some relevance: If we look at life on Earth we see that there are plenty of successful strategies that do not involve the development of large brains. A large brain, which is vital for the development of technology, is only one possible strategy for success. Species like bacteria or the dinosaurs are or have been highly successful without the benefit of a large brain or even a brain at all.
However, given the large number of stars, it is unlikely that the large brain strategy wasn't ever followed - until Earth. The number of available successful strategies is much smaller than the estimated number of available stars, on which life can develop. Thus, it is to be expected that all of these strategies are represented in the Galaxy more than once. So, it isn't very likely that no alien technological civilization exists out there.
The point 2 is highly pessimistic. It claims an over abundance of the self-destructive spirit among large brained animals and/or of the unfortunate grand scale events. It also posits an unlikely frailty of the technology-based civilization. Although it may be that some aliens self-destructed or were wiped out in their prime by some catastrophic event, the claim that all of them had faced the same doom is down-right fatalistic and requires an explicit explanation. If all technological civilizations die out it means that for some reason it is impossible for them not to die out. But what is this reason? So, the point 2 isn't a very good explanation either.
On the other hand, the point 3 isn't very hard to understand. A civilization that is millions or maybe even billions of years more advanced can't possibly have much to gain from trading with us. For them we can't be anything else than either an interesting object of study or totally uninteresting. Now, given the SETI probing of the sky and the fact that it hasn't detected any alien radio waves, we can assume that the highly developed aliens have cleaned up their radio "fossils" in order not to influence us. Thus, we can draw the very flattening conclusion that we are a very interesting species. :))
So, I think that aliens really are already here, but of course not as crashed UFOs and alien bodies kept secret by the American government. They are here in some other form that we aren't probably able to detect.
Images: imagined aliens drawn by children aged 8 to 13 (Susan Blackmore); Ali?n knopen (Yoarra); SETI radio telescope
